


Friendly Competition

by JaySLC



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Chills, College AU, Exhaustion, Lance Pidge and Hunk are freshmen in college, M/M, Overworked, Sick!Lance, Sickfic, and roommates, vld
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-07-01 12:08:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15773820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaySLC/pseuds/JaySLC
Summary: Lance wants to outperform his rival, Keith Kogane, on an upcoming chemistry exam, but didn't realize it was coming up so soon. Pidge and Hunk do their best to help Lance prepare, but there's only so much they can do when time is limited and Lance is sick from overworking himself. Reposted from my Tumblr.





	Friendly Competition

**Author's Note:**

> Yay! Starting a new fic before I finish my ongoing ones as usual. I have this whole story planned out already, but I won't tag themes or characters involved until they show up, so tags and characters will be updated with each chapter.

“Alright, Hunk, one more time with the flashcards and I think I’ll be ready for a break!” Lance took a swig from his coffee mug, replacing the 32 oz metal container on his desk with more force than intended, making the remaining liquid slosh around angrily. He wasn’t the type of person to drink coffee (excessively), but time wasn’t in his favor and he needed all the help he could get if he wanted to even stand a chance at scoring as high as his rival, Keith Kogane, on this upcoming chemistry exam.

Pulling the sleeve of his jacket over his hand, he nuzzled the fabric, cold and wet from acting as Lance’s makeshift snot rag since he got up that morning. Although the fabric was soft and the pressure applied gentle, to Lance’s rubbed-raw nose he might as well have been cleaning up his face up with sandpaper.

“Are you sure you want to keep going, man? You’ve been looking pretty rough since this morning, maybe you should call it quits and finish up the rest of your studying tomorrow?” Lance wanted to correct his best friend, tell him he’d been looking rough since before the sun even thought about coming up, when he hit his twenty-eighth hour sans sleep at around four in the morning, but he promised himself he would stay positive. Pidge had mentioned to him once before that when she stayed positive, reassuring herself she would do well on an exam and keeping in good spirits, she’d perform better than when she let herself get nervous and defeated. Since Pidge was one of the most intelligent, highest performing students he knew, Lance took his classmate’s advice to heart and was sticking to it. He’d follow any piece of advice that sounded promising at this point.

“Don’t worry, Hunk, I’ll rest up and be better than ever once this exam’s done and over with.” As if to protest, to demand justice for the mistreatment it’d been receiving recently, Lance’s body shook violently, caused by a chill that ran from the base of his tailbone up to his neck. Gritting his teeth, he hugged himself tightly, a small, dry cough escaping past his lips as he tried to force his quivering muscles still.

“If you even make it that far…” Pidge mumbled under her breath, tapping away at her phone as she sat on her bed across the room.

Lance rolled his eyes as the shaking subsided as quickly as it began, stretching his long limbs that had grown stiff from lack of use. He promised himself he would stay positive, dang it, but Pidge’s negativity was starting to make it difficult.

“You should have started studying for this weeks ago if you wanted to earn such a high score on it. Studying begins at day one, not two days before an exam.” Lance tipped his head back as he laughed, swiping the cuff of his jacket back under his nose and muffling another dry cough into it when it was in front of his face.

“Oh, Pidge, learning is overrated. This is called ‘cramming’.” Sighing in defeat, Pidge turned off her phone and set it down on the table beside her bed.

“Whatever you say, just wrap it up fast. I don’t care whether or not you care about your own health, but I care about mine, and would like to get some sleep sometime tonight.” Lance prompted Hunk to run through the set of cards, assuring Pidge that it would be the last thing he did before he called it a night. Nodding sleepily, Hunk shuffled the deck, revealing the front of the top card.

“The ideal gas law is…?”

“PV=nRT.”

“And the variables represent?”

“Pressure, volume, number of moles, gas constant, and temperature.”

“Units for each variable?”

“Atmospheres, liters, moles, and degrees Kelvin.”

“What about the gas constant?”

“It should be in L atm/mol K.”

“And the value of the gas constant for what you guys are doing? You can round to whatever you want, but at least to three significant figures.”

“Y-yeah i- _hih_ -it sh-ould b _e-heee_ … E _HHH_ …!  _HEEEH_ …?” Fanning his hands frantically in front of his face, he desperately hoped to draw out the tickle that was stunting his speech. Pidge groaned, flopping backwards onto her bed, glaring at Lance as she waited for him to get his outburst over with. Breath hitching madly, he cupped his long, thin fingers over his mouth and nose, trying to hide how disgusting he must look from the two people that were staring him down. Jaw hanging precariously open, he forced his middle finger to brush up against the bridge of his nose, coaxing the tickle the rest of the way with ease. “ _HiI’xxSSHUH!!_ ” Lance froze, blushing deeply, embarrassed that his attempted stifle had escaped and turned out much louder than he’d hoped. Sniffling back a cloud of congestion that had decided to settle in his nose and sinuses, he looked back over to Hunk with his hand still hovering over his face. “The - the value of the gas constant is 0.821.”

“Nope, you missed a zero. It’s really 0.0821. You’ll want to watch that, you can really throw off your calculations if you use that number instead.” Lance felt a tug of anxiety in his chest. He knew that one. It was one of the only things that was going to be on this exam that he felt totally confident about. If he didn’t know this then what else didn’t he know? Before any of the building anxiety could start spiraling out of control, something sailed across the room and struck him in the knee, tumbling weakly to the floor.

A new box of tissues.

Pidge sat up in bed, feet dangling over the edge. Her features had softened, looking far less irritated than before. Lance looked back and forth between her and the box of tissues laying helplessly on the ground, nervous to move or do anything that could change her mood again. Taking his chances, he nodded a wordless thanks and retrieved the box, tearing open the cardboard as quietly as he could. Pulling out two clean sheets and placing the box right-side-up on his bedside table, he mopped up his face properly, nose stinging despite the use of soft material due to prior abuse.

“Lance, don’t take this the wrong way, I’m not trying to lecture you, I promise, but from experience, you really aren’t going to take any more away from studying tonight. When you start tripping up on the easy stuff you’ve gotten to the point where any further studying is only going to leave you getting materials confused.” Hunk nodded in agreement.

“Really, dude, I know you’re set on trying to impress Keith or whatever, but at this point, sleep is going to help you more than studying.” Something stirred in Lance’s chest that he couldn’t quite identify, but it made him blush into his tissues.

“I’m not trying to impress Keith, I’m trying to —”

“Get a higher score than him because you’re rivals, we know the drill.” Pidge smirked as she threw her legs back onto the bed. “Does he even know that you two are ‘rivals’?” Lance was about to lash back, say that of course he did, how could he not know, but come to think of it, he’d barely ever gotten the chance to even talk to Keith before, only admire him from afar, and be slightly envious of how easily his high scores seemed to come to him. “Regardless,” She continued, seeing Lance begin to think a little too hard. “I’ll make a deal with you.” Lance tossed the used material in the trash.

“What kind of deal?”

“One where we both get to sleep and you get to do the best you can on your exam.”

“I’m listening.” Lance asked hesitantly as Pidge laid down on her back, taking off her glasses and resting them next to her phone.

“If you stop studying for tonight and go to sleep now, I’ll help you study with Hunk tomorrow.” Perking up, Lance couldn’t help but beam, though the dark circles under his eyes dulled the look.

“The whole day?”

“The whole day. I’ll help you however I can so you can study as efficiently as possible and be ready for Monday.” Lance felt like he could cry.

“What would you want in return? That would be a huge favor.” Pidge chuckled as she closed her eyes, rolling onto her side, away from her roommates.

“Just go to sleep so I can go to sleep. I didn’t have anything scheduled for tomorrow anyway, it’s not like you’d be interrupting anything.”

“Pidge, you are literally a life saver! Thank you so much!”

“You can thank me tomorrow once I’ve helped you out. For now, just go the heck to bed.” Nodding vigorously, Lance rounded up the note cards, print-outs, and loose-leaf paper scattered across his and Hunk’s beds and stuffed them all haphazardly into his backpack, telling himself that he would organize it all tomorrow morning.

His body shook warily from the exhaustion that had settled into his bones, and he allowed himself to lay back into his pillows still fully clothed on top of his bedding, finding even the idea of getting up to change into something more comfortable far too strenuous.

He only focused on his tense muscles, one limb at a time, acknowledging the strain and willing them each to relax, feeling his whole body becoming lighter bit by bit, until he finally drifted off into a dark, dreamless sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> As with all good sickfics, things're going to get worse before they get better for Lance, but love and soft comfort also await the good boy. <3


End file.
